


cynosure

by vounoura



Series: knife wife and staff loser [12]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Romance, aka that famous Kvatch Scene™, this is just a kiss stretched out into 1.5k words okay it is PURE wish-fulfillment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 03:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18275036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vounoura/pseuds/vounoura
Summary: “Well, look who’s here!” Naryu starts, a grin pulling at the corner of her mouth when Nirasa stumbles into the doorframe of her rented inn room, only half-strapped into her chitin war plate. She moves as if they hadn’t spent the majority of their last evening indulging in a bottle of wine together, trying to muster enough sense to make their mornings worth something. “Afraid I’d leave without giving you a goodbye kiss?"





	cynosure

**Author's Note:**

> the sequel to sehnsucht and verklempt!

“Well, look who’s here!” Naryu starts, a grin pulling at the corner of her mouth when Nirasa stumbles into the doorframe of her rented inn room, only half-strapped into her chitin war plate. She moves as if they hadn’t spent the majority of their last evening indulging in a bottle of wine together, trying to muster enough sense to make their mornings worth something. “Afraid I’d leave without giving you a goodbye kiss?"

Nirasa smiles at the joke, sticks her tongue between her teeth. Somewhat uncoordinated (hungover - Naryu doesn’t need to guess, they had half a bottle of wine each and then some), she settles for leaning against the wall instead, brushing hair out of her eyes. “Terrified. What would I ever do without your touch? I just can’t live.” She nods towards her, appreciatively. “Nice outfit.”

(Naryu’s dressed in travel leathers, all layers and chitin and straps pulled tight. The compliment is offhanded, but she feels herself smile regardless.)

“That’s what you wanted to say to me?” Naryu leans into the words with her best faux-offended voice, accent just a touch deeper, sighing with _just_ the right amount of flair. “After all we’ve been through?” Naryu snorts. “Look at _you_ , though. Off to Cyrodiil, are you?”

“Off to war,” She agrees, a smirk pulling at the corner of her lip. “You know me - I’m your local war criminal turned vigilante.” She flicks an imaginary piece of dust off her cuisses, then off the sleeve of her arming coat. Nirasa’s not looking at her - she keeps shifting from foot-to-foot, her gaze always landing squarely on either the floor or the ceiling.

(Naryu loves how she's so damn transparent. Nirasa's just as emotionally reticent and irritatingly stubborn as she is, it's true, but she's still a damn bleeding heart at her core who wears _some_ of her feelings on her sleeves.

She's been fidgeting since last night, on edge and distracted, barely able to hold a glass of wine. Stress, she says, but Naryu knows her better than that.)

And it’s entirely unfair, Naryu thinks, because absolutely _nobody_ should look that fetching half-dressed in chitin (especially when it’s emblazoned with the red-and-black standards of war), but Nirasa has always managed to stir her chest in the oddest ways imaginable.

Her heart constricts. Two and a half years they’ve known each other, haven’t they? Two and a half years and Naryu _still_ doesn’t know the exact specifics of their relationship. Oh, she tells the Tong she’s a business partner - a friend, an associate, a trusted confidant - but Naryu’s not stupid (or at least she likes to think she isn’t) and she’s not so unobservant as to miss the way her fingers burn when she thinks of Dunmer in chitin and leather.

Nirasa’s voice breaks her out of her trance. “So where’s the great Naryu Virian off to now?”

“Vvardenfell,” Naryu replies, quieter than she means to. “Friends, family. It’ll be good to see them again.”

“Vvardenfell, huh?” Nirasa murmurs, more to herself than anything else. The expression crossing her face is _so_ wistful that Naryu quiets; she almost wants to reach out and touch her, drag her thumb lightly against the angle of her cheekbone or the curve of her hip in some form of comfort, but she bites her tongue instead.

(Nirasa’s mentioned Vvardenfell before, and even if she hadn’t Naryu could tell by the (absolutely horrendous) accent.

Nirasa always talks about Gnisis in the same way one would talk about their lost family members, always quieting in a way that is so unlike her when the topic is mentioned.)

The words _why don’t you come with me_ almost bubble forth from behind her teeth, but Naryu doesn't let them cross that boundary. A restless sort of desperation settles in the staccato of her heart, in the rushing of blood behind her ears - her mouth goes dry, her fingers twitch.

( _What if_ , her mind whispers - what if this _thing_ , _whatever it is,_ _you have with Sethan burns out eventually?_

Louna too weighs on her mind.

 _(Your daughter_. Why is it always Nirasa who's dragging her into things like this?)

But more than that, Naryu thinks of the way Nirasa had immediately chosen her protection over her personal morals, no questions asked, jumped into the fray for her sake and-

Well. Good deeds deserve just rewards, don't they?)

She hears herself say the words without really registering what they mean, _one good kiss_ and then she's seizing Sethan roughly by one of the many straps that make up her armour. And it's an impulsive, stupid decision - one that Naryu kicks herself for, she doesn't make impulsive, stupid decisions, not often anyway - but she doesn't know when the next time for it will be (if there ever even is one), needs to affirm her intentions _now_.  
  
(Who is she kidding? With Nirasa there always seems to be a next time.  
  
But the instinct that had seized in her gut had not heeded that.)  
  
This is far from Naryu's first kiss (and she's even had better), but there's an unmistakable sweetness in the surprised, immobile slant of Nirasa's mouth that Naryu finds herself chasing. There's a certain brand of gentleness in the slow, cautious way Nirasa brings her hands to her hips (even here, mind clouded by yesterday evening’s half a bottle of wine, she remembers - Naryu doesn't like to be touched without consent, and the fact that she's still so thoughtful about that preference of hers makes something in her chest burn brightly), dragging slowly up her back; one that Naryu finds herself emulating with her thumbs, absentmindedly stroking the angle of Nirasa's cheekbones gently.  
  
And it's a slow, sweet thing - a little wholesome for her taste, but once Nirasa finds the scattered fragments of her mind and puts together enough sense to manage a response it's downright pleasant.

(She's softer than Naryu's expecting. She thinks of chapped, cracked lips and roughened fingertips and the permeating scent of death when she thinks of soldiers, not the bitter hint of dreugh wax on her lips and the remnants of cheap wine and crisp hackle-lo on her tongue or the scent of ash and thunderstorms - of magic - clinging to every crevice of Pact-emblazoned armour.

Something tingles faintly on her lips - magicka potions, if she were to hazard a guess - and Naryu grins despite herself.)

It’s not the most comfortable thing in the world - chitin plates grind painfully into her front, perhaps kissing a woman half-dressed in armour was not her smartest move - but she leans in regardless, presses herself further into what warmth that chitin-and-leather clad body provides, chasing the scent of thunderstorms. She thinks she hears Nirasa's head hit the wall but neither of them seem to care.

When Nirasa's tongue slips into her mouth - slow and cautious but oh-so-sweet - Naryu grins around it, genuinely surprised.

(Naryu forgets sometimes - an odd thing for her to be saying, but still - that Nirasa is braver than she looks.)

Her hands wander forwards, moving from Nirasa's cheekbones to tangle in her hair instead. The fragile, whisper-thin strands fall from between her fingers like water, and when Naryu instead moves to lightly scrape her scalp with dulled, blunted nails, she feels more than hears Nirasa make an appreciative noise in thanks.

Nirasa's hands dig into her hips, gloved fingers catching not-painfully on her hipbones. It is perhaps not the best kiss Naryu's ever had in terms of technique (Nirasa is adorably clumsy in some ways) but she burns like no other. Heat blooms in her chest, sensation radiating to the tips of her fingers and the soles of her feet - when the need for breath becomes too insistent, it is with genuine remorse that Naryu gently pulls away.

(She feels Nirasa chase her as she does, always seeking more contact. Her breath saws out of her chest in waves. Her mouth tingles, and she's not entirely sure it's from the potions Nirasa drinks.)

“If you ever want another,” Naryu whispers the promise against her lips, eyes still closed, still seeking, searching, _wanting_ despite herself, “Come find me in Vvardenfell.”

(She wants to fall back in, wants to search every hidden place within the confines of Nirasa's mouth and learn every secret she hides behind her teeth, but instead she steps back and puts herself back together. Calm, collected.

(The ghost of that mouth on hers will haunt her the moment she boards that ship back to Vvardenfell and for every moment afterward.)

Two and a half years later - when the memory of Kvatch becomes something relegated to a secret portion of her mind - just outside Balmora in probably the single-most unlikely place ever possible and against all odds will Nirasa run into Naryu again, and the sight of her will fill Naryu's chest with warmth so strongly she almost wants to kiss her again right then and there.

(Because that's what Nirasa _does_ , isn't it? Find her again, somehow, despite everything.)

Instead she'll settle for a joke. “ _Were you imagining a hot bath, a bottle of wine, and a cottage with a roaring fire?_ ” She’ll say, a heat settling deep into the tips of her fingers.)

**Author's Note:**

> Cynosure - a person or thing that is the center of attention or admiration.


End file.
